The Tragedy We Call Life
by Charred
Summary: All the Yugioh characters can't seem to express their love very well. It is after a language assignment that gets them thinking. Mostly angst. Ryou story up first!


I give up on writing comedy. I'm going back to my angsty fics. This is basically a collection the thoughts of some of the Yugioh characters. There is going to be YAOI and only YAOI. I do like hetero couples, I just hadn't gotten get any inspiration from them yet. This chapter is going to be Ryou's thoughts. This fic is inspired by the short story "Onnagata" by Mishima Yukio. This whole fic is going to have something to do with the short stories by Mishima Yukio. I was really inspired by his writing. I strongly encourage people to do some reading outside of school. Reading other novels by authors around the world can be refreshing. Reading books by Anne Rice and Stephen King are nice, but it rarely expands your horizons.

The Tragedy in Which We Call Life

Chapter One: Anti-Nostalgic

            Ryou sighed as he finished the last page of the short story "Onnagata". The curriculum for juniors in Domino High included Japanese Literature. Currently their Japanese class was studying Mishima Yukio. Ryou wasn't really all that fond of Japanese Literature. The most important emotions that were in most classical Japanese Literature are nostalgia and regret. It's rather depressing. The main character either dies in the end through suicide as in the novel Kokoro by Nasume Soseki which their class just read, or dies emotionally. There is never a happy ending. Despair and death seems a perpetual theme in Japanese Literature.

            But Ryou can't help but relate to the main character of Masuyama in "Onnagata". To make this short story shorter, Masuyama is a man obsessed with an actor named Mangiku Sanokawa. Mangiku is an onnagata, which is an actor who plays mostly female parts in a kabuki play. Masuyama realizes that he is obsessed with this man, but watches Mangiku from afar. Masuyama joins the kabuki theatre staff to satisfy his obsessions. Masuyama keeps emotions inside and never tells Mangiku of his feelings. One day, a new director Kawasaki, arrives at the theatre. Mangiku falls in love with him. Kawasaki does not really like Mangiku, but Mangiku ask Masuyama to set up a date Kawasaki and him. The story ends with Masuyama seeing Mangiku and Kawasaki leaving together. The reader does not know if Mangiku is rejected by Kawaski.

            Ryou was especially moved the last lines of the story, "Masuyama watched them go. He felt as though a big, black, wet umbrella were being noisily opened inside his heart. He could tell that the illusion, first formed when as a boy he saw Mangiku perform, an illusion which he had preserved intact even after he joined the kabuki staff, had shattered that instant in all directions, like a delicate piece of crystal dropped from a height. At last I know what disillusion means, he thought. I might as well give up the theatre" (Mishima 161). When Ryou read that, there was this pain that hit him to the very core of his being. The pain in which he thought he suppressed a while ago surfaced once more. It was the very same pain that he felt when he found out his Yami was going out with Marik.

            Ryou was somewhat obsessed with his yami. He always did as Bakura wished. He rarely went against his yami. Ryou, like Masuyama, watched his yami from afar. Never letting Bakura know of his true feelings. Ryou feared rejection and fear the loose of Bakura's respect. So, Ryou did nothing. When Ryou saw Bakura making love to Marik on that beautiful spring day, he felt his heart shatter. For his yami's sake, he calmly left the room and then started having a breakdown. Ryou finally understood he was living in an illusion. That he was trying to fool himself into thinking that Bakura would return his feelings even though he never did anything to show his emotion.

            Reading "Onnagata" revived his previous pains. Ryou tried his emotions into a little corner again, but it's harder the second time around. Ryou's initial despair was gone, so Ryou was able to think a little more clearly. After thinking it out, he realized that was his hesitance to make any moves that cause him such great heartbreak. With this new realization, he turns his previous emotion of regret to courage.

            Masuyama may have lost his love to Kawasaki, but Ryou wasn't going to lose to Marik. Ryou was going to fight for his love. Even if Bakura still does not return his feelings after his confession, at least Ryou can live without regret. Nostalgia and regret may be the building blocks of a classical Japanese novel, but it's not going to be the emotions surrounding his life. Ryou goes back to finishing his reading assignment with a determined smile on his face.

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Declaimer: I do not own Yugioh or the short story "Onnagata". Here is my citation! Don't sue me!

Mishima, Yukio. Translated by Keene, Donald. Death in Midsummer and Other Stories. 

'Onnagata'. New York, New Direction Publishing Corp: 1966.

What do you think? I would really appreciate it if you'll review! Thank you! Since I had American Lit. in my junior year, why didn't Domino High have Japanese Lit in their junior year?


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